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Macgyver Phone Charging

Every once in a while you get the problem of your cell phone running out of batteries just when you haven't got a charger at hand.

This afternoon it happened to me,.... Damn empty battery and no charger for miles... At least that I know of.

So what do you do ? Build your own, in,.... 1 minute.

Step 1: Find the Pinout of Your Phone

This instructable will only work with some phones, because you can't imitate the most plugs that are used to charger mobile phones, but with my Sony Ericsson it works fine because of the way the phone is charged.

To find the pinout of your phone, you could use Google, or use ( the one I used, with help of google Pinouts ). Hit Ctrl + F and go look for you phone pinout. If you can't find it, you'll have a problem and won't be able to continue, but you usually will.

My phone has a 'standard ?' Sony Ericsson plug so it was easy to find. I used the image below, disgarding the Datacable part,... which it think can be pretty usefull :).

Step 2: Making Your Charge Station

For making the charge station I used:

1 Breadboard2 Pieces of wire ( snipped of from a resistor )1 Powersupply

As you can see, the contraption is quite simple, just make sure the two wires touch te connector at the right places, and turn on your power supply.!!!!! Make sure your power supply supply's the right voltage, I knew that the original charger charges the phone with 5.1 Volts. So I figured that 5 Volts would work to. !!!!!

At first I used a 7805 voltage regulator to make the 5 Volts. But after 5 minutes smoke came out the regulator. (I didn't know that this phone is charged with over 1A current...........)

So after that setback I just went with te power supply's native voltage of 4.5Volts which works perfectly.

Don't look at the crap that is still in the breadbord, it's just some project that I'm working on, that had to make some place.

Step 3: You're Finished

Now all you have to do is wait till your battery is charged, and you can call again.

Ow one thing, make sure youre phone is turned off, because when anyone calls you, your phone might start vibrating, and the charge wires could make a short circuit,.... And you don't want that to happen ;)

If you're in a bind and only need a minute or two, try rubbing the battery with your hands until it's relatively warm. A woman I told this to actually used that hint in an emergency and was able to call her daughter.
Not an instructable, but a helpful hint.

Project in the background is a 8x8 led display with a PIC 16F628.
There was no risk of blowing up the phone ( i hope ). Because de original charger isn't current limited, so that has to be inside the phone. And since the 770mAh battery is normally charged in ±1 hour, It uses about 1A. So without an coolblock usually an 7805 won't be able to give the current and burn out.